


The Third Life of Jughead Jones

by DarknessAroundUs



Series: A Written Life [4]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Bisexual Betty Cooper, F/F, F/M, Married Couple, Parents, Teenagers, Writer Betty Cooper, Writer Jughead Jones, fake article
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-28 03:04:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20771474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarknessAroundUs/pseuds/DarknessAroundUs
Summary: A reporter goes to rural New York to discover what makes Jughead Jones write the way he does.





	The Third Life of Jughead Jones

**Author's Note:**

> So just a bit of a warning! This is a fake New Yorker profile by an entirely imagined writer. As such it is written in first person (which I don’t generally do). I got the idea in part from the wonderful The Feel Good Hit of the Summer (https://archiveofourown.org/works/2389424).
> 
> This story is mostly very positive but there’s brief mention of some of the sad things happening in the past. 
> 
> You don’t have to have read a Grand Mistake or This Day, A Life to understand this.
> 
> This story takes place about a decade after This Day, A Life Ends. Huge thanks are owed to the continuity queen KittiLee!

The New Yorker, Profiles, The Third Life of Jughead Jones by S.T. Hyde.

Jughead Jones was born Forsythe Pendleton Jones III, in Chicago, Illinois. His parents, Forsythe Pendleton (FP) Jones II and Gladys Jones were both addicts and members of the Southside Serpents, a small Chicago based gang. His mother left when he was seven. To say that his father raised him is to use the term “raised” loosely. 

Toni Topaz-Lodge, Jughead’s lifelong best friend and a staff photographer for the New York Times, says that the Southside Serpents provided them with the basics in terms of food and shelter, and in turn the younger members of the gang, helped each other along. It was as she put it, “not a good set-up.”

When Jughead was sixteen he became the leader of the youth contingent of the gang, a position he at least partially inherited from his father. By that point he’d been in his fair share of street fights, and minor robberies. Only after he was in a leadership position did he start to run guns across the border. 

By the time Jughead turned eighteen, FP was arrested for murder. Jughead cleared his father’s name after a six month investigation. The details of this part of Jughead’s life are all covered in his first book, a slightly fictionalized account of his teenage years called The Ghost of a Bullet. 

The Ghost of a Bullet spent fifteen weeks on the NYT’s Bestseller list twenty-seven years ago. It is a gritty story conveyed in a polished style, and that’s part of why it’s so compelling. It’s also part of why it is still in print today. There is a disconnect between the version of Jughead that is the protagonist of this tale, and the one writing it.

Jughead laughs when I tell him this, then nods. “It’s the story of a street punk, written by someone getting an MFA. That’s a big leap.” He says this to me just minutes after we meet, in a town at the end of one of the Metro North’s train lines. I’m staying with Jughead and his family in their house in rural New York for a week as part of the research for this article. 

I’m curious to see how he transformed from a criminal to a crime writer and then again in the last seven years, to something new and different, a literary author creating a whole new style of storytelling. It is rare that an older established literary author changes course as dramatically and successfully as Jughead has.

It is even rarer to do what Jughead did last fall when he published, The Father Song. That book has dominated best sellers lists ever since, but more than that it has come to define and lead a new group of writers. Usually this is a young authors job, not one in his fifties, who has been churning out books for nearly thirty years.

It is the kind of surprise one usually reads about in fiction. This new development has been written about a great deal elsewhere, but usually from a distance. The Jones’s are a private family and this is the first interview of any depth Jughead has allowed in the last decade. He’s never even allowed an interviewer to visit his house before, never mind stay a couple nights. When I ask him about this, he simply says, “My kids made me do it.”.

I ask Jace, his oldest, about this on the first night and he says, “I think my parents pass up too much in order to protect the family, to keep us safe and happy. I don’t think a reporter can hurt us, but having a record of what it’s like here and now for when I’m older would be nice.”

By the last night I understand what he’s saying much better. The way the Jones’s are living is different and unique. They’re a very modern family in many ways, but the way they are close knit and near self-sustaining reminds me of an earlier time, like homesteaders. I don’t know this the first night though. I think I’m simply writing a story about one man. It takes me five days to realize that this family doesn’t work that way. No one can be written about in isolation. 

On the first day Jughead picks me up from the train in a beat up blue Ford pick-up truck that frankly doesn’t seem road safe. He’s a careful driver though, never going above the speed limit and always having a hand on the wheel. 

Jughead is tall and thin, with dark but graying hair. He’s 54, but he looks a lot younger than that. He looks more like the professor that he used to be than the small town dweller he is now. Once we’re in the car I mention the fact that he looks nothing like a former gang leader. He says, “That was a long time ago, but I still have the tattoos.” 

I see the tattoos later in the week when he’s harvesting pumpkins with the kids. They swirl up the sides of his arms and disappear beneath his t-shirt. Some are very basic, and others are extremely elaborate. When he takes the t-shirt off later in the week while chopping wood, I see that there is a mermaid version of his wife on his back. 

He refuses to tell me the meaning behind any of the tattoos. When I ask him why he has so many, he shakes his head, “It’s an addiction like any other.”

It’s funny to hear that line coming from Jughead because for a former criminal, he’s remarkably straight laced. He doesn’t drink alcohol with any regularity, he doesn’t smoke or do drugs of any kind. He’s held long term jobs that require consistency, although he was a little notorious for forgetting his office hours. He’s been happily married for almost twenty-five years.

The whole week he comes across as reliable and trustworthy, dependable and laid back. A man who knows what he likes and what he loves, and what he doesn’t care for at all. At one point during the week I tried to bring up sports to him and he shakes his head and says, “Not my deal. Never has been.”

During the ride from the train station, I don’t know all that much about him, besides what’s been written about before, by others and himself. Outside of his first novel, his books are entirely fiction. 

But on the drive, I learn that his family relocated to a farm outside of Greenfield, a town with just one high school, a little over a decade ago. His wife and he wanted to make the transition to writing full time, and after adopting their third child, they outgrew their condo in Manhattan. “Or that’s the CliffsNotes version,” he says, eyes focused on the road.

Jughead’s wife is Elizabeth Cooper, the bestselling author of five non-fiction books and the former long time non-fiction editor of this magazine. She is a legend in her own right, for entirely different reasons. For the rest of this story, she will be referred to as Betty, which is what Jughead and all of her friends call her.

Jughead met Betty at Samuel Fields University where they were both getting their Master’s of Fine Arts degrees. Betty edited his first manuscript back then, when they were just friends. They didn’t stay just friends for long, by the time they graduated they were in a relationship. “I’d like to say that us being together felt inevitable. But at the time it wasn’t like that at all. Everything felt so fraught. I knew I loved her before I even convinced her to date me.” Jughead says.

When Jughead met Betty, she had a strict no dating in grad school policy. Betty’s a bit of a mythical figure around The New Yorker offices, even though she left before I was hired. She has a reputation for being an excellent editor and is still called in when uncharted territory is approached. Her non-fiction writing is regularly published in the magazine, although she turned down a staff writer position. 

I’ve also heard around the office that she’s excellent at finding things. One co-worker of mine claimed that Betty found her stolen dog within 24 hours. Jughead laughs when I tell him this, but he’s not surprised. “She used to be a PI and she’s pretty magical. You’ll see when you meet her,” he says with a shrug, as if the whole thing is too complicated to explain.

When we get near their farm, Jughead talks about how the move out here was rough initially. The kids loved the extra space but the adjustment to rural, conservative New York was not a smooth one. The family as a whole didn’t blend for a lot of reasons. 

Betty and Jughead loved having more time to write, but they struggled with being so far away from their friends. Slowly their kids have made in-roads at school at least, and Betty and Jughead were able to convince some of their closest friends to move up here. 

To that end Toni and her wife, the former fashion designer Veronica Topaz-Lodge, have moved into a house on the same property, and so has Archie Andrews, the well-known record executive and Betty’s brother. 

The group of homes is referred to collectively as The Farm, not just by the families themselves but by the community as a whole. This is funny in part because they are surrounded by other farms, and while they’re moving towards more or less self-sufficiency (“If you factor in trading goods” Betty stresses), they don’t make their living farming.

The three families are tight knit. Jughead tells me that on the drive, but it’s only once I get to the houses do I realize what he means.

The property itself is large and sprawling, with a barn, a chicken coop (plus actual chickens), a half dozen goats, three pigs, and plenty of forest and fields. The houses are all a two minute walk from each-other. The biggest is the Jones’s, an old blue Victorian they restored. The Topaz-Lodges and the Andrews houses are slightly smaller but brand new. 

There’s a large pool behind the Jones’s and a greenhouse that’s filled with tomatoes and herbs, lettuce starts of every kind. Archie has a recording studio out back, and the Topaz-Lodges have a shed that doubles as a dark room. 

We enter the Jones’s house first and I am greeted by someone I initially assume is Betty but ends up being Veronica. I then encounter four teenagers and a child. It ends up taking me two days to figure out who belongs to who, but I eventually figure it out. 

The Jones children consist of Jace, the oldest, a handsome high school senior. He’s kind but always in charge. All the other kids look up to him. River is a short sixteen year old with a onesided undercut. He’s quiet and spoke little to me. Josephine (Jo) is ten, she’s wears dresses everyday, even while helping with the goats. She’s in elementary school while the rest are in high school, which she calls a tragedy. 

All three children are adopted. To glance at them is enough to know this. It’s spoken about too, in a casual way, mostly. Betty’s also adopted and at one point I accidentally overhear her and Jace discuss how frustrating it is to not have access to one's biological parent’s health records. 

The Topaz-Lodges consist of Mia, a fifteen year old who is always seen with a book, and Chloe, who at fourteen can make the best apple sharlotka I’ve ever tasted. Their biological father is Archie, but this fact is only mentioned to me by Jo on the last day casually. 

When I phone Archie up about it a week later, he just laughs and says, “It worked out for everyone, man. We all wanted kids and I wasn’t about to settle down.” He is very much involved in the daily lives of his kids. He’s taught Mia and Chloe three instruments each. He’s taken all of the kids into the city to see various concerts. 

All of the kids are not only close with each other, they are also close with all the adults, not just their parents. That’s part of why it took me so long to figure out who belonged to who. Mia and Jughead are in charge of collecting the eggs every morning. Toni is helping River with a serious photography portfolio. Betty and Chloe do most of the cooking for everyone as a team. Jace cowrites songs with Archie. 

Still, I don’t understand how the kids operate entirely till the third day. Jace’s car breaks down, so Jughead volunteers to pick all the kids up from school in the Vanagon. I ride along with him. We wait outside the high school for a few minutes, watching the other kids exit in clumps of two or three. 

Then Jace, Chloe, Mia, and River exit. Jace’s arm is linked with his girlfriend, River is holding hands with his boyfriend, Chloe and Mia are both chatting to two girls I never get the names of. But they appear like a solid pack, a group, a team, amidst the scattered other students.

I knew at home they were close, but at school I thought they would abide by the unspoken rules of school. Where everyone is in separate grades and has separate interests. I get now why Jo is so frustrated by the fact that she’s alone in elementary school. But it’s remarkable in and of itself, how included she is given the huge age gap.

Later on the back porch after dinner, watching the sunset, I ask Jughead if that surprised him, the kids closeness even at school. He shakes his head, “I mean Betty and Archie were always best friends at school, despite being siblings.” 

Then almost as a non-sequitur he says, “What’s more puzzling for me is how it all worked out in our generation. I mean I grew up with Toni and she was my best friend, and within a year of meeting Betty and Archie she counted them among her closest friends. Veronica put up with us at first, but now she’s one of us too.”

It shouldn’t really work, these two generations of close friend-family but it does. It also helps me understand one of the reasons Jughead’s most recent book, The Father Song is so powerful. Most stories focus on the relationships between generations. The Father Song covers four generations of the same family. In the book it is deliberately hard to follow who is related to and even sometimes who is older than who. 

One day I watch Jace teach Jughead how to patch a tire (Betty had taught him), and it feels almost like reading a continuation of the book. 

The Father Song is a genre defining work and it’s already managed to spawn a number of imitations, none of which are nearly as good. I think it’s because the authors who imitate Jughead, don’t live like that. I’ve never met anyone who does. The book reflects his lived experience in a genuine way. 

When Jughead was writing the mystery books that dominated the middle of his career, they always got decent reviews and sold well. They were the kind of book my own father read, in fact Jughead’s Owen Hart series was his favorite.

My father looked forward to the fact that one came out every two years like clockwork. He liked guessing what the plot would be and who the murderer actually was. 

The Owen Hart series was well plotted, sometimes unpredictable, and better written than the bulk of the bestseller list, but there was nothing unique or surprising about them. The protagonist, Owen Hart, was the sort of cliched alcoholic womanizing PI one’s come to expect.

Most authors, if they’re going to change their stripes mid career, only do so because of a sudden decline in book sales. But the Owen Hart books always sold well. What changed is Jughead’s perspective on the character. “Owen represented, in part, the me before Betty and the kids, the more I wrote him, the more I loathed him. We had nothing in common. Neither of us were in our twenties anymore, and as far I as I was concerned, he didn’t have any excuses for his behavior,” Jughead says. 

Jughead had to return a hefty advance when he refused to finish the last Owen Hart book, but he insists that it was worth it, even though over the next decade he only published one book, The Lonely Ghost a poorly received family drama. 

Jughead describes writing The Lonely Ghost as “pure fucking torture.” He first started writing it shortly after Jo was born. This period in his life was marked by sleep deprivation, and then more notably by the loss of Betty’s adopted father. 

Fred Andrews is still talked about daily on the farm. When I visited it was rare for even a meal to pass without a reference to him. A framed photo of him with his grandchildren hangs in the living room. Chloe, Mia, Jace and River are all grinning goofily for the camera and Fred is staring adoringly at Jo who is cradled in his arms. 

Fred was Betty’s adopted father and Archie’s biological one, he was also adored by Veronica and Toni. Jughead was particularly close to his father-in-law.

When Jughead mentions that Fred’s death affected the next five years of his writing life, I was quick to presume it was in the context of Betty. My follow up questions must have indicated that because Jughead responded by saying, “I grew up without knowing any good fathers, not only was mine terrible, but most of my friends were just as bad or unknown entirely. Fred was kind and understanding, one of the best human beings I know, and the reason Betty was able to become Betty.”

The more I talk to everyone who lives at the farm, the more I understand how the group as a whole was affected by Fred’s death. He was so important to everyone that no one was sure what to do with their grief. It was harder to lean on each other because they were all suffering at the same time. 

Fred’s death wasn’t the only change that happened. Jughead buying his way out of the contract for the Owen Hart books placed financial pressure on the family as a whole, and when they decided to move out to Greenfield, Jughead gave up his tenured job at Columbia and Betty went back to working full time, although remotely, for the New Yorker for five years. 

Jughead went from being a tenured professor in a major city To being a stay at home dad on a farm in rural New York. He no longer had a series of books to pump out, but a clean slate and a giant question mark. The Lonely Ghost reflects just how tough that adjustment was. 

It’s about loss, but reading it leaves readers at a loss, with more questions than answers. “The pressure to publish overwhelmed everything else,” Jughead says. “If I could take one book back it would be that one.”

It sold poorly and the reviews were devastating, but in retrospect it’s viewed as a stepping stone to The Father Song. The book was a learning experience, although Jughead stresses that he didn’t know that at the time, although he says Betty did, “I was wandering in the wilderness, certain I’d never write again, and Betty was just so confident that that wasn’t the case. She kept bringing me home books to read, making sure I had time to write.”

When Jughead tells me this on the second day, I have yet to meet Betty. When I arrive she’s guest lecturing at the Iowa Writers Workshop. For the first two days I’m there, I spend lots of time with every member of the extended family, but not her. Although she is spoken of constantly, and not just by Jughead.

Veronica cooks dinner that first night and she apologizes for the pizza she makes. At the time I don’t understand. It’s perfectly good, and it’s made from scratch outside of the dough. But two nights later when Betty makes saffron chicken with five side dishes, I realize that pizza is not the standard fare for this family (All ten of them almost always eat dinner together).

Everytime Jughead mentions missing Betty while she is away, he has to put a dollar bill in a large jar, much like a swear jar. While she is gone, Jughead donates over a hundred dollars to the jar. The kids end up spending the money on going to the movies when Betty returns. 

If the whole family was forced to donate to the jar, there would be almost twice as much money in it. I understand why when she gets back. 

Betty is warm and thoughtful, she comes bearing small gifts for everyone, and somehow making the aforementioned chicken dinner in an hour. The house also looks suddenly, inexplicably cleaner. Everyone seems happier. I wonder if the same is true when others travel for work. I don’t get the chance to test my hypothesis, because the only other person who leaves when I’m there is Archie, who only spends half his time on the farm, since he still holds down a job in Manhattan. 

I meet Betty for the first time while she’s making dinner, and she’s too preoccupied with cooking to pay too much attention to me. The next morning though, I’m up early and I meet her in the kitchen for coffee after her run. 

Betty looks like a runner. At 52, she’s thin, with blond hair, and only a hint of wrinkles, but her posture and body language all convey athlete, not writer. She looks like a typical blond suburban mom. Unlike Jughead she has no visible tattoos or any other indicators of edge.

She makes coffee in the French press and pulls a pre-baked banana bread loaf from the freezer and throws it in the oven to warm it up. The whole time she asks me thoughtful questions about my life and my partner all while gracefully dodging any question aimed her way.

Only once we’re both seated and drinking coffee does she start to talk about herself. She’s guarded, more so even then Jughead, but I can see why she has reason to be. Betty’s past which is all a simple Google search away is complicated. 

When she’s tried to be more open about things in the past, the conversation has often gotten out of hand, yet still she’s trying with me. She answers questions about her early relationship with Jughead, and about the early years when Jace and River were still young, what it was like to have Jo from the start, versus fostering to adopt. She refuses to tell me what her first impression of Jughead was.

I ask her if she misses Manhattan and she says, “Somedays, here I end up running on the road a lot and it’s not nearly as pleasant as Central Park. But we’ve gained so much by moving. The kids have more space and independence here. They can be kids and have friends, and make mistakes. Jughead and I aren’t famous here the way we were in New York and that helps them a lot. They can be their own people, most of the time.”

She pours me another cup of coffee then and Jughead comes down from upstairs, sleep still clearly in his eyes. He ignores me and presses a kiss against his wife's forehead and then pours himself a cup of coffee. 

Halfway through drinking the cup he seems to have noticed me and he says, “Go away, it’s too early for journalists.” 

Betty shakes her head as an alarm clock goes off upstairs and soon River and Jace are in the kitchen asking for coffee. I go outside and sit on the porch for a bit. Betty had focused on the positive of them living here, but there’s negative too.

They are far more liberal than the town. Betty’s car got spray painted with the term “Bi-slut” the first week they moved here. Jace, River, and Jo, have had issues with bullying over their race at school and in town. The Father Song was put on the local High Schools banned book list because of its frank discussion of sexuality. 

Jughead and Betty have both become active in the PTA, but it doesn’t always help. I attend a PTA meeting with them during my visit and every time they attempt to speak, the other parents unite, making it clear they won’t listen. Even the ones that were arguing among themselves a minute earlier, now get along. 

It’s not just a matter of politics or race either, but the fact that they’re famous probably doesn’t help matters. A year ago, Jace won a country wide youth writing competition and this year he was the youngest person to ever have their short story published in the Atlantic. 

Both publications were met with open skepticism in town, including an incident that involved pigs blood and Jace’s locker. A lot of the locals claim that Jughead actually wrote the piece. A claim every member of the family finds laughable. It’s not a theory that’s gained traction outside of their small town, because their writing styles are different in every way.

Jughead’s writing has an edge. Even The Father Song has the lingering effects of a knife and dirt. Jace’s writing is gentle, there’s a softness in it that’s surprising. He’s kind in a way his dad is not. Jughead has a hard edge, and sometimes when my questions got too personal, his expression would say everything, while his mouth said nothing. Jace’s life might have started by being abandoned in a shopping mall, but everything that he really remembers involves stability and unconditional love. 

Town gossip does not take writing styles or personalities into consideration. I asked Jace’s English teacher (who asked not to be named) and she said succinctly, “Sometimes people don’t like facts.”

It’s not like the whole town hates them, everyone has friends in town, it’s just that the people that don’t like them can be vocal about their opinion.

But the good does seem to outweigh the bad. I get the impression that part of why the children are so close with each other and their parents has to do with the isolation. While they have friends in the community, they are miles away and mostly linked to school. 

The real grounding friendships all exist on the farm with each other. They swim together and drive the tractor. They go on long hikes and pick berries. The older kids are not beyond having tea parties and building forts with Jo’s.

A lot of the social hierarchy and ageism that’s so prevalent in the kids I interact with on the subway and at stores in the city is nowhere to see here. 

Toni confirms this when she says, “When we lived in Manhattan, we saw each other three times a week. The kids were close, but it was different. Friends were valued over family. Part of why Veronica and I ended up moving here was that we saw how being in the wilds brought Jace, River, and Jo closer together with each other and Betty and Jug. We wanted that for ourselves.” 

Jace’s impending graduation is viewed with a lot of collective nerves. He’ll probably be attending Columbia next fall (Jughead still teaches there from time to time), and the whole family seems braced for change. Jace included. He can’t seem to talk about next year without tapping his toe nervously against the floor. 

When I ask Jughead about it he just smiles, “We are lucky to have our time here together as a family. If everything changes, at least we had it for a lot longer than most families.”

On my second to last day with them, I witness something that’s clearly one of the benefits of living out here. I’m out on a walk when unexpected rain drives me home early. I enter the Jones household sopping wet and head up to the shower. 

I make it to the second floor when I hear voices coming from the third floor. The third floor of the house had been converted into a one room studio with five desks (one for each family member), a mini fridge, an easel for Jo and piano for River. There’s also comfy chairs scattered around. 

I know that Betty and Jughead are up there talking, and I find myself climbing the stairs quietly. I spot them right away. They’re at their desks, on their laptops, bantering a little bit about getting a dog. I’m not sure which of them is pro and which is against, but the conversation is full of laughter and light touches. 

At one point, Jughead turns away from his laptop and says, “I’m so glad you’re the love of my life,” and he kisses Betty on the shoulder. It’s clear by the way that he says it and the way she responds with a kiss on his cheek that this is an exchange they’ve had many times before.

My presence is not noticed and I back down without being seen, but I am struck by this observed moment even after I leave. I’ve interviewed lots of people in longstanding partnerships over my years as a journalist. 

One couple I interviewed were so cloyingly sweet during our interview that I wondered if they were even capable of fighting, but the minute they closed the door behind me I could hear them start to scream at each other.

Jughead and Betty were always kind to each other in front of me. They always held hands and joked, but alone they seemed to be a whole different level of comfortable simpatico. 

When I ask Betty later if they ever plan on collaborative writing together she shrugs, “We love working in the same place on different things. I can’t imagine writing fiction, that’s just not how my brain works. But we always knew we’d be happiest spending all our days together.”

I see that. As soon as Betty returns, they spend their spare moments together and with their kids, as soon as I free one of them from an interview they seek the other out, although the few times I try to interview them together, they artfully dodge their way out with excuses like the chickens or cooking. 

The Father Song has received some criticism for the wife in the book not getting enough credit, for being almost invisible at times. But now that I’ve met Betty, who at the very least influences the character I understand better how hard it is to convey her role. 

When I asked Jughead about that he says, “In my experience raising a family the mothers are often the glue, unseen by outsiders but the most important. I tried to make that clear in The Father Song but failed. I’m trying harder this time.”

When I ask Betty about it she laughs and says, “There is no such thing as a perfect book!”. If there’s such a thing as a perfect marriage, or a perfect family, I think I’ve found it.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for joining me on this journey. 
> 
> I'm so grateful for any and all feedback!


End file.
